This Is War

fourteen

I knew I was dying. It was poison. Something that humans haven't discovered yet, therefore, no cure. Alien. I could tell. I forced myself to revive for just ten minutes. I knew who would be next to me. I was right.

"Ben. . ." He didn't hear me, "Ben!" I mustered some energy into the name. He opened his eyes to see my probably ghastly pale face.

"Dion! Do you want anything?" His eyes glistened.

"No. Wait, yes." Maybe no one besides me knew I wasn't going to live. I wasn't about to say anything about it. "Tell me a story. I talked to your father earlier this month. He mentioned a boy named Jimmy Boland. Tell me about Jimmy."

A look of hurt flashed across Ben's face then vanished. For a long minute, he didn't answer.

"Jimmy Boland?" He asked.

"Yeah."

"He was thirteen, like you, and had. . . Uh. . . Brown hair. And he was short. He was the best hunting partner I ever had. Was the youngest soldier the 2nd Mass ever had, probably one of the bravest, too."

He was talking kind of slowly. I could feel the energy draining from me, "How did he die?"

Ben blinked, "We were hunting skitters one night, and he got stabbed. In the stomach. I got him back to camp and Dr. Glass did all she could. But the next day. . .

"Jimmy stopped breathing. We c-couldn't revive h-him."

Ben's voice cracked. A boy, my age, had died. Died fighting for kids that he didn't even know.

I found the messiah from the song.

'To the leader' Captain Weaver.

'The pariah' John Pope.

'The victor' Ben Mason.

'The messiah' Jimmy Boland.

I tried to say one more sentence to Ben, but I don't think he heard me clearly. Hopefully he does it anyways.

"Take care of my family."

Then all was black. But I was fine with dying. You know why? Because:

I had made a victory against the invaders of my home. However small it was, it counts on the battlefield.

This Is War.